Georgia: Opposition Radicals Struggle to Rouse Public

The weather was changeable, sun alternating with cloud and rain, as implacable opponents to Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili held a rally last week to mark the first anniversary of the brutal dispersal of protests in the capital last year.



The fortunes of the opposition are also changeable. The turnout for the November 7 rally by opposition radicals was relatively low, while other groups opposed to the president stayed away and are playing a longer game.



On November 7 last year, riot police broke up a rally with rubber bullets, tear-gas and truncheons. Dozens of people were hurt, a state of emergency was declared and the government was subjected to international condemnation.



On the anniversary of those events, vehicles with Georgian flags and white ribbons, the symbol of the opposition which is meant to signify peaceful change, raced through Tbilisi.



The slogan "STOP RUSSIA, STOP MISHA" was written on numerous placards. Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare, was thronged with protesters.



However, there were much fewer of them than this time a year ago. The crowd was estimated at being between 10 and 15,000, not a big turnout by recent Georgian standards.



Booklets were distributed setting out the plans for the future of this wing of the opposition. It represents a hard-line group who did not win representation in parliament in last May’s elections and who are against compromise with the governing regime.



The booklet says that on November 7 a “new wave of permanent actions” began aimed at the peaceful removal of Saakashvili.



The immediate aims are set out as being an independent investigation of the August conflict over South Ossetia, freedom of speech, the release of political prisoners and the adoption of a new electoral code.



This wing of the opposition said it plans to hold a round-the-clock picket of the Imedi television company, which supported the opposition last year when it was owned by former tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, who died in February. They want to see the television company returned to the tycoon’s family.



Then, in December, they plan a congress of the wider opposition.



“A united political organisation will be formed in which all parties, leaders, public figures and non-governmental organisations will be united,” said the statement. “The new organisation will ensure the continuation of permanent acts of protest until the spring of 2009 and the holding of free and fair elections in Georgia.”



The next rally is planned for January 25, with a protest on Roses Square demanding the annulling of the results of the most recent presidential and parliamentary elections and the holding of new ones in the spring of 2009.



“If the authorities do not heed this demand of the opposition, on April 2009 in Tbilisi and other towns of Georgia there will begin round-the-clock…indefinite protest actions and a national campaign of disobedience will be declared,” said the announcement. “The action will continue until the immediate and unconditional resignation of Mikheil Saakashvili and his government.”



“Do we have to have elections every spring, like snowdrops?” asked 62-year-old Giorgy, one of the protesters. “Let’s get rid of this man once and for all and then we can have elections.” Like many of the demonstrators, he was more radical than the opposition leadership.



Since last November, the former opposition coalition has splintered. Five parties took part in the street protests. Others have entered parliament, while others, such as the Republican Party, simply stayed away.



Many in the opposition are holding out hopes that Nino Burjanadze, former speaker of parliament – and one of the two surviving leaders of the 2003 Rose Revolution with Saakashvili – will make a strong demarche against the president.



A few days before the rally, Burjanadze issued a statement expressing regret that she was not able to protect those who suffered during the crackdown of November 7. But she did not appear at the anniversary demonstration, neither did former prime minister Zurab Noghaideli who has also joined opposition ranks.



Georgian analysts say that the opposition has so far failed to make an impact but it is too early to say how effective they will be.



“It is entirely possible that in the future there will be larger-scale protest meetings, but for the opposition to be able to mobilise public opinion there needs in the first place to be a liberalisation of the media space,” said political analyst Archil Gegeshidze.



Gegeshidze said that the opposition should first fight for freedom of speech before it campaigns for early elections.



“However, I do not see [anything that] will push the authorities into making real steps to liberalise the media,” he said. “It is possible only by means of internal and external pressure.”



Gegeshidze said that if the opposition can coalesce around one leader, such as Burjanadze, then there is a chance of real political change in the country, but this kind of consolidation is unlikely.



Commentator Tornike Sharashenidze said that the low turnout on November 7 showed that the time of removing leaders through mass protests had ended and the opposition had so far failed to offer a clear alternative vision.



“If the government does not make any serious mistakes, it will be hard for the opposition to start a wave of protests,” he said. “I don’t think that the authorities will agree to hold early parliamentary elections.”



Another expert, Ramaz Sakvarelidze, agreed that calling for early elections was the wrong tactic.



“Let’s suppose that the authorities are crafty and agreed to elections,” he said. “Does the opposition understand what kind of chances it has? Today the government is much more popular. The opposition needs to create a real alternative to the critically minded section of society, otherwise the protests will have no result.”



Nana Kurashvili is a freelance journalist in Tbilisi.